


Drowning

by Dayja



Category: Sherlock - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-22 00:47:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 17,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/231802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dayja/pseuds/Dayja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock has never learned to swim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Drowning  
> Warning: Traumatic childhood situations  
> Disclaimer: I do not own/am not associated with/make no money from 'Sherlock'

**1.**

When Sherlock Holmes was seven years old he had a cousin who was nine. He called his cousin Rupert because that was his name. Rupert called him an assortment of names, of which Shirley was probably the kindest and Warlock the cleverest and after that it descended into nastier but unoriginal name-calling because Rupert thought Sherlock to be an annoying little know-it-all freak who refused to call him Ripper like the other boys. Theirs was not a fond relationship.

Then one day during the summer holidays Rupert came to visit and Mycroft did not. Sherlock did not think this a fair trade, no matter what his mother said about how nice it was for him to have a boy his own age. In the first place, Rupert was not his own age, he was two years older, which to a child created an insurmountable barrier and placed Sherlock firmly below his cousin in childhood hierarchy, a fact which caused resentment on both sides when Sherlock refused to acknowledge it. In the second place Rupert was dull and boring, being interested in sports and very little else. He had no interest in looking at things, or learning about anything, and the one experiment Sherlock had ever caught him at conducting involved finding out if a cat really would land on its feet if dropped from the top of a building.

"That's wrong," Sherlock had told him firmly, hands on his hips as they both stood on the small balcony, Rupert still holding the cat in a threatening position.

"I thought you liked experiments," Rupert answered, sounding sincerely confused. Sherlock had often heard him use just that tone talking to adults about how whatever latest catastrophe was an accident, not his fault. It sounded real, but it wasn't.

"It's a wrong experiment," Sherlock answered, "Put her down."

"I saw what you did to those frogs," Rupert answered, "Why is this any different?" He made a slight motion as though he intended to drop the cat right then and there, and Sherlock jumped half a step forward, hand outstretched even though he knew he'd never catch her in time. He pulled back his hands and took a pose that mimicked Mycroft whenever his brother was explaining something to him.

"Because frogs are different," he answered, though in a tone nothing like Mycroft's because it trembled slightly, "They are nobody's and were dead and you can help creatures if you know why they die and the cat is ours, and Mummy likes the cat, and you don't break things people like, because that is wrong!" And the cat was warm and soft and purred, and the thought of the cat being broken sent a funny feeling through his chest that he didn't like at all.

"But don't you want to know?" Rupert asked. And the worst part was that Sherlock _did_ want to know. But he wanted to know without the cat being broken. And when Mycroft caught them out there Rupert tried to insist that he was only joking and he wasn't really going to do it, he just wanted to scare Sherlock. Sherlock didn't believe him. Mycroft said if he caught Rupert at it again he would toss him from the balcony and see if he landed on his feet, and that he hadn't done his proper research if he thought this was high enough for the experiment to be successful. He showed Sherlock to the right books.

And his mum thought Rupert for Mycroft was a fair trade.

All the same, for about the first week Sherlock managed to stay out of Rupert's way and Rupert had no interest in Sherlock. But then came the day when there were no other boys to play with and kicking a ball by oneself becomes a bit dull and most any other sport or game really needed another player to even begin to be interesting and Rupert decided that his cousin would do in the place of anyone else.

Sherlock, in the meantime, was entirely used to playing by himself and was occupying his time being entranced by a spider web. Rupert found him staring at it.

"What are you looking at, Freak?" Rupert asked by way of greeting.

"I don't want to play football," Sherlock answered, without looking.

"No one asked you to," Rupert said back, even though he had been fully intending to drag him away for just that. They stood there in silence for a few seconds more, until Rupert became annoyed and grabbed a stick. He swiped it through the web.

"No!" Sherlock yelled at him, turning his eyes upon him in an intense glare.

"Don't stare at me, Warlock," Rupert said, discomfited in spite of himself until he remembered that he was older and bigger. "And anyway. I don't want to play football. Come on, we're going to play a game."

"I don't want to," Sherlock answered, his glare not wavering. Rupert glared right back, clinching his fists, and Sherlock's eyes darted briefly towards the stick still held in his hand. Slowly, Rupert relaxed, a mean smile appearing on his face.

"Are you scared, Shirley Girly?" Rupert laughed.

"No," Sherlock answered, in a way that sounded like he really wasn't, and Rupert found himself feeling angry again. Sherlock should be scared. Rupert was bigger than him and older than him, and Sherlock should be begging to get to play with him and he should think Rupert might hit him with the stick.

"Well you should be then, because we're going to play a game. It's called stick race. We can go around the garden and back again. And if I beat you I get to hit you with a stick."

"And if I win, do I hit you with a stick?" Sherlock demanded.

"I suppose," he answered with a bit of a laugh, but after a seconds consideration he added, "But only where I tell you to. And if I hit you, you can't go crying to mummy that I beat you up."

"It sounds like a stupid game," Sherlock answered.

"Yeah, well, you better play or you'll lose, and then I get to hit you." Sherlock considered this. His eyes got a faraway look as though he were doing maths in his head.

"All right. To the pear tree and back again?"

"You have to touch the pear tree, no cutting," Rupert warned, and then all in one breath, "Mark, set, go!" And he took off running, barely thinking to drop the stick. He heard a scuffle behind him as Sherlock started. Rupert wasn't worried though; his legs were longer and he was the one always playing outdoor games. There was no way a little bookworm freak would beat him.

Rupert's assessment of Sherlock, however was not entirely accurate. For one, despite the fact that Rupert had never seen him at it, Sherlock did not completely detest sports and games. He simply detested playing them with most other children. Hide and go seek was one of his favorite activities, in fact, when played with Mycroft. And this race was not entirely left to who was fleetest of foot, but also to who could plot the shortest path across the garden. So Sherlock pictured in his mind, both the usual rout and every shortcut he could find.

'Hole in the hedge obvious, tricky, crawling slows you down and shirt often gets caught…go around, choose flowerbeds over trees, less to dodge, pond…rocks in middle but can't swim, risky, go around, stump, run on fence over plants instead of around, risk of hurt minimal but if a fall could lead to losing, to tree, back on fence, swing towards pond, flowers, hedge and back.'

Sherlock ran.

Rupert was in the lead, and his thought process more or less went 'run fast in a straight line for the pear tree' and he dove into the hole under the hedge. Crawling under took up time, but so did Sherlock's going around, but Sherlock was caught up and running fast while Rupert stumbled to his feet. Rupert took off again, through the trees, weaving and dodging while Sherlock took the less direct but more or less straight path around. They both went around the pond. Rupert knew how to swim but he didn't really want to risk falling in and losing the race. Then they came to a veritable jungle of plants which looked as though they hadn't been tended to for years. There was no straight path through. The pear tree was right in the middle of them at the back, against the metal fence. Rupert made straight for it, getting his ankles caught at every step. Sherlock ran away in seemingly the wrong direction entirely. Rupert was halfway to the pear tree when he saw Sherlock, balancing deftly on the fence and moving swiftly towards the goal. Sherlock touched the tree.

Turning around on the fence was fairly easy with a tree to hold onto and Sherlock went back the way he came, balanced on the narrow beam. By the time Rupert was able to lean over and touch it, Sherlock was halfway back along the fence. Rupert almost considered copying his cousin, using the tree to get up, but he didn't trust his balance to do half as well, and he couldn't bear his cousin seeing him being worse at something sports-like than him. So he turned and tripped his way back. Sherlock had a firm lead.

Rupert's legs were still longer, but his breath was coming in gasps and his face was growing red with exertion and Sherlock was still in the lead. Sherlock went around the pond. Rupert saw his chance. He took the path right down the middle, stone to stone to stone. He was catching up. They very nearly reached the path again at the same time. Very nearly because as Rupert reached the second to last stone, he found it slicker than expected. He slipped. His head hit the stone with a resounding crack and he was in the water.

If Sherlock had been too much in the lead he might not have even noticed. But he had had his eye on his cousin, wondering if the stones had given him too far of an advantage or if Sherlock could stay ahead. He saw him fall, heard the crack, and then Rupert had vanished into the water.

He stumbled to a halt, his brain running several directions at once. Part of him could see clearly funerals and blood, part of him could imagine the water covering him, another telling him to move, scream, get help, go to the water. Another, slightly treacherous part of him was still occupied by the race and wondering if this meant he had won. He felt as though he were the one drowning as the world intruded, the paths through the garden mixed up with the memory of Rupert's disappearing body and the sound of heads hitting stone and the way the clouds cast shadows across the pond and the way the green in plants had parted for the body and the bird that twittered in that tree over there which said there was a predator nearby, probably a snake or a cat.

His breath still heaving, Sherlock moved to the water. Rupert hadn't come up. He wasn't swimming, even though he knew how to swim. Sherlock knew there was something to be deducted by this, something about the sound his head had made, but his brain couldn't shake the bird's song or the feeling that something was trying to break free in his chest and making it hard to breathe.

It was bad that Rupert wasn't swimming. Sherlock thought that if he were older or bigger, he would be supposed to swim after him. He couldn't swim. So he lay down on his stomach and looked into the water, and looked, and his brain remembered how Rupert fell and told him where a body would be if it had fallen and not begun to swim and he plunged his hand in and found something solid all tangled in green. He pulled, hard, and his cousin was there and his head lolled wetly and he didn't seem to breathe.

The bird was too loud to hear anyone breathing, and the body was solid and unmoving no matter how he pulled, and Rupert had to get better so he could know that Sherlock won the race and then Sherlock would get to hit him with a stick, only Sherlock wouldn't hit him hard at all, just a tap, and breaking people was so much worse than breaking cats.

There was shouting. Stronger hands than his pulled the body away. There was more shouting, but it didn't make sense, which was odd because everything always made sense, even the big words that he might have to look up later or ask Mycroft about, only Mycroft wasn't there because he wasn't coming home, and was this what drowning felt like? Like he couldn't breathe and the birds screamed and big people moved around and shouted and shoved him aside like he was invisible and cold, so so cold, while cousins still didn't breathe and had their lips turn blue and silent. Sometimes looking at things and learning about things and knowing things was too, too much, even for a scientist. So Sherlock let it all go away.

One week after the funeral, Sherlock stopped talking for two years.

Twenty-five years afterwards, Sherlock drowned for the second time.


	2. Chapter 2

**2.**

A wall of solid sound turned the world white. Sherlock had never experienced anything quite like it as for a perfectly lucid moment the world turned itself inside out so that sight and sound and up and down was meaningless.

Then the world came back sharp and painful but still upside down with no air to breathe and his eyes burned without his brain sorting what he saw and his ears were ringing and useless and for some reason the entire world tasted like chlorine. By the time his thoughts aligned into any sort of order and he realized that he was underwater it was already too late.

He flailed his limbs; he had seen people swimming before and understood the basic concept but somehow instead of his head bursting free to the surface, he found only concrete and the water was heavy and squeezed and burned and there were no green things growing to entangle him, where was Rupert, no John…and he had to breathe, and large hands were on his head holding him down…no, Mycroft had saved him, he was…there was no…

He took a breath. The water burned. The world faded.


	3. Drowning Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3.

3.

When John Watson was four years old he took swimming lessons. It wasn't anything major, the assembled kids weren't expected to become Olympic swimmers but just to at least have some small skill in the feat of not drowning when dropped in over their heads. John and a row of other children lined along a wall next to an instructor, clinging to the side while they practiced kicking and ducking their heads under and were instructed to never ever swim underwater close to the side of the pool.

John was always a bit anxious about following rules. Unlike Harry, who was the reason the biscuits had to be kept up high and who screamed bloody murder whenever their mum tried to put her in dressy clothes. She had already gotten in trouble twice for running near the pool and with his parent's attention on her John was left to splash around the shallows by himself. This was before his lesson, before he knew much more than kicking his legs like a frog underwater. Swimming underwater was easy to learn, and when his feet could touch there was no reason to know any other style.

He did stay in the shallow end at first. A normal day at the pool involved splashing with Harry, until stopped, and swimming underwater and climbing out to jump back in, usually into a parent's arms. But Harry was already in trouble and not likely to play splash games, and there was no one to jump into the arms of, and there's only so much fun to be had swimming underwater before his eyes started to sting and water got up his nose and anyway it's no fun to try to show off or do tricks like an underwater flip if no one was watching. So he made up his own game.

First, he tried walking out as far as he could down the shallows until he had to stand on his toes to keep his head above the water. It wasn't very far. Then he went to the side of the pool. There was a bar to hold onto at the edge, just beyond the steps. Right there, where the bars were, was at least a foot too deep for John to touch. But he could hold onto the bars. For a while he did just that, playing at ducking under until his feet touched and then launching himself back up. Then he played at pushing himself away a bit before spinning around and catching the bar. It made a good game. He didn't stop to think about what would happen if he missed until he did.

Suddenly, he was too far away to grab the bar and too deep to touch and the only way he knew how to swim was underwater. Which would have been fine except that he had been told, many times, that he mustn't swim underwater towards the side of the pool. Common sense to most people might say he ought to risk it. But John was four, and following rules was important, so instead he sank until he hit the ground and kicked so that his head bobbed out of the water and he could breathe, for a moment, until he sank again. It was an odd situation. He couldn't swim but he wasn't panicked because of the bobbing. Maybe a little scared. And he knew he should call for help, call up to the lifeguard or over to his parents or someone, because he couldn't bob forever, but he didn't want to do that either. It seemed a bit embarrassing, needing to be rescued. So he sank and jumped and just wanting _out_ for nearly five minutes before someone noticed him.

"You need some help?" a person asked. The guy looked quite old and grown-up to John, though most would consider him a young teen. He had an uncertain look upon his face, not knowing if John was jumping in the water for fun or if he was about to drown. John responded by latching onto the stranger before he could go under again, holding himself up.

"Ah," said the youth, when John said nothing but just clung slightly tighter than necessary and suddenly feeling a bit scared where he hadn't been when he was in actual danger. "Do you want to go to the side or the steps?" John still didn't answer so the stranger started towards the steps. "Are you alright?"

"John!" His father was suddenly there as well, "Are you alright, what happened?" John switched his death grip to his dad.

"He looked a bit out of his depth," the stranger explained.

"John?" his dad asked, and he looked a bit upset like John might be in trouble. For some reason he couldn't explain, John didn't want to speak, but he didn't want people to get upset either.

"I couldn't touch," was all he said in the end, and then, "He helped me."

"Thank you," his dad said. And the other said something about being glad to help before wandering back into deeper waters.

John decided to take a rest from the pool for a bit after that. Not a long rest though. When it was time for swimming lessons he was ready to jump back in. There might have been an important life lesson there, but all John really remembered, years later, was that he didn't like the feeling of needing to be saved.


	4. Drowning Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 4.

4.

Mycroft Holmes was never what one would call an active child. He lacked the coordination for sports and did not see the point in tiring activities. What he did like was to read and at this task he was quite adept. As a sedentary, somewhat chubby boy, he ought to have spent his youth bullied and alone. Somehow it didn't work out quite like that.

"You're failing maths," he announced to a would-be bully. There was more to read in the world than books, and Mycroft was nothing if not an avid reader.

"What of it?" the boy answered.

"Give me your workbook and I'll take care of it." And that should have been a standard agreement between victim and bully, but Mycroft was the one proposing the deal and he didn't sound defeated.

"Yeah?" the other answered, trying to look menacing but mostly managing confused.

"Of course, I will want something in return."

"How about I don't bloody your nose?" And there was the standard, expected arrangement. Mycroft looked unimpressed.

"Not good enough. The worst you could do to me would heal in a week. The worst I could do to you would set you back a lifetime. In trouble for fighting, cheating…and still failing maths. Your father might be able to bail you out, and he might not. Either way he will not be happy, will he? And if you keep attacking me…well, I can almost guarantee you will be expelled within a month. At most."

"Well…"

"And even if you did stay, you would be watched. Didn't you want to join the swimming team? Failing grades and in trouble for fighting? It's not going to happen. So no, you aren't going to hit me. And I'm not helping your grade without something in return."

The two boys stared at each other. Mycroft looked very sure of himself, though inside he was shaking a bit. It was true, everything he said, but that didn't mean the other boy was smart enough to realize it. He didn't say anything more to convince him, though. He waited and let the boy think.

"What do you want, then?" the bully finally asked.

"Protection," Mycroft answered promptly, "For me and my friends."

"You don't have any friends."

"Not yet," Mycroft agreed. And that was the start. Word got around that Chris wouldn't hit you if you were friends with Mycroft and within a week Mycroft had two others in charge of Chris's grade problem. Two because Mycroft insisted someone tutor him and he thought Chris might get out of it with one person.

So Mycroft was not bullied, not as a child and not as a teen, and even if it sometimes seemed he was the one actually running the school, he mostly used his influence to either stop what he saw as wrong or to let himself out of doing things he did not care for. He probably had the brains and the skill to rule the world someday, or at least part of it, but if circumstances had left him to himself he would far more likely have become something along the lines of a researcher or scientist; someone with a hundred letters to his name and well known within certain circles but not someone who would take a real stance with what went on outside his sphere.

Then came Sherlock.

Sherlock was very like his brother and also very much not like his brother. Both brothers had a very active and quick mind. To Mycroft this meant sitting back and observing. To Sherlock, this meant setting out and exploring. As a toddler, Sherlock managed to get Mycroft to do what no amount of letters home from school could convince him to: run. Sherlock ran practically from the moment he was walking, and if the person minding him wasn't quick, he'd be into anything and everything.

By the time he was four, Sherlock had formed the habit of searching Mycroft out and asking him questions. Mycroft was only eleven himself, but in his little brother's eyes he knew everything about everything. But questions weren't enough for him. Sherlock wanted to do things, to find things out for himself. He seemed wary of information he couldn't touch, as though the books might be lying to him. Perhaps this was because he still didn't quite understand the difference between the fictional stories his mother was fond of and the non-fiction his brother mostly pursued.

"Mummy says there are fairies in the garden, and Father says that's nonsense, and I looked and I saw a butterfly, and two birds, and one chirped and was loud and Mummy says it was beautiful but it hurt my ears, and there was a beetle, and a froggy that I catched, and Mummy said 'Oh, Sherlock' and she said it wanted to go home, so we put it in the pond, and there was another butterfly, and a worm, and the leaves all went flutter and made a hush hush noise, and something went rippling in the pond, and a real live bunny twitched its nose but it ran, it was fast, going home I think, but there was not a fairy, not a single one, so are fairies nonsense?"

"What" Mycroft asked, being quite used to his brother's chatter to the point of tuning it out as needed. At this moment he was attempting to read a book on Arthurian legends.

"Are fairies nonsense?" he repeated, looking expectedly for Mycroft to give him the definitive answer on the subject.

"Most scientifically minded people are of that opinion," Mycroft answered without looking up from the page.

"I'm a scientist," Sherlock declared authoritatively and Mycroft made a hmm noise and his brother let him alone for a few minutes. Just long enough for Mycroft to be getting lost again in the book when Sherlock was suddenly there again, leaning against him.

"Did Mummy lie, then?" he asked, eyes wide and serious.

"What?"

"Did Mummy lie because she said there are fairies and you said fairies are nonsense."

"I did not. Some believe in fairies and some don't. Mummy believes and Father doesn't." As Sherlock continued to lean heavily against him, Mycroft finally gave up and set the book aside.

"Alright, what is it you…what's that?" He went from resigned to concerned at the dark shadow on his brother's arm. He pulled the arm for a closer look but Sherlock squirmed away. Mycroft frowned. "Sherlock," he said firmly, "Where did you get that bruise?"

"Dunno," his brother mumbled towards the ground in stance Mycroft recognized as guilt or embarrassment, "Just happened."

"I don't know, and bruises like this don't just happen. Tell me, Sherlock." His brother shifted slightly from foot to foot, looking small and unhappy. He said nothing. "Tell me, or we will go to see father." This time there was a flash of fear. Then what was probably meant to be a fierce glare but looked entirely too cute on his small face.

"Wanted to see dolphin statue," he mumbled at last, "Climbed desk. Maybe slipped. A little. On some papers." Mycroft frowned.

"You know you aren't supposed to climb!" he cried, more exasperated than upset. If their father had caught him he'd probably have been confined to his room for an hour. Mummy would be more likely to cuddle him for being hurt. Mycroft chose the more rational approach of reasoning with him. "This is why; you get hurt. Is your arm all you hit?" Sherlock didn't answer this time, just shrugged. Mycroft looked hard at him. Then Sherlock was suddenly a bouncing bundle of energy again, a thought obviously coming to him.

"Want to play a game?" he demanded, "Want to? We can be scientist explorers and be the first ever scientists to find a fairy!"

"Hmm," Mycroft answered, and then felt his brother's head for bumps, just to be sure. Sherlock made a noise of annoyance, before grabbing his brother's hand and trying to bodily drag him away from his chair.

"Come on, Mycroft, you read forever and ever at school, now it's time to be a scientist, come on!" And Mycroft sighed, saved his place in his book, and resigned himself to go on a fairy hunt.


	5. Drowning Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5.

5.

Two weeks after moving into 221b Baker Street, John was making a valiant effort to read an article on medicine and Sherlock was draped across his chair, tapping. John was just getting on the verge of making some action, whether to move to another location or throttle his roommate he wasn't sure which, when some measure of recognition came to him from the apparently random strikes of the violin bow against the table. His annoyance forgotten, he set aside his article and looked at Sherlock with surprise. He let the taps run on for a minute to get an idea of what was going on.

"That's Morse Code," he said at last, "I'm-bored-I'm-bored-John-bored-boring-bored"

"And finally, the soldier takes notice," Sherlock answered, "And it only took him twenty-four minutes." At least he stopped tapping.

"Of course you know Morse Code," John muttered and considered returning to the article now that the distraction had stopped.

"Since I was eight," Sherlock answered, and John's interest was momentarily swayed once more towards his roommate. Sherlock said so little about his childhood.

"Eight?" he asked, "Did you go to some sort of spy training school?"

"Mycroft taught me," Sherlock answered, "He was a bit obsessed with teaching me codes and non-verbal forms of communication around that time.

"Ah," John said, and then, after a moment, "Did Mycroft go to some sort of spy training school?"

"He taught himself at the same time," Sherlock answered, and still looking half dead to the world, he made some movements with his hands. John recognized it as sign language, but the little bit of that language he knew was not enough to translate.

'Sorry,' he signed back when he caught Sherlock turning to actually look at him, his expression interested, 'I don't know sign language. I can finger spell.' At that Sherlock shot him the 'how can you be so stupid' look and turned away again. Sherlock resumed his brooding and John resumed his article. The silence lasted for nearly five minutes before Sherlock was tapping again.

This time Sherlock counted eight minutes of determined silence before John threw the article down. Sherlock looked up hopefully, ready for anything that might relieve him of the dull, empty void his mind had fallen into. With his bow, he tapped out 'problem-John' while giving a questioning stare. John stood, whether with intentions of violence or simply to go somewhere else Sherlock wasn't certain. John was fascinating.

Then came the knock at the door. Holmes recognized that knock.

"A case, at last!" he exclaimed, swinging himself out of the chair and rushing past John to let Lestrade inside. John slowly relaxed his hands from fists as the inspector explained about the body found in a park. Sherlock listened intently before going for his coat. He tossed John's at him with a cry of "Come along, John!" before rushing out the door. John considered, briefly, sitting back down to finish his article as Lestrade gave him a commiserating look. With a sigh, gave in and put on the coat.

The body turned out to be that of a child situated on the bank to a small lake. Grim faces were all around, and the glares sent towards Sherlock were much more vicious than normal as he animatedly expected the body with a gleam of excitement in his eye, spouting a stream of observations that he might as well have pulled from thin air for all the connections most of the people present were able to make. Under normal circumstances, John would enjoy watching Sherlock go. With the body of a child lying before them, it was hard to retain the necessary detachment. Finally, Sherlock called him over to conduct his own investigation. With a slight bit of reluctance, John complied. Officers milled about while he looked, talking in hushed voices if they talked at all.

"It appears to be a child," John said, beginning with the obvious, "Going by the clothes and the hairstyle I would say a male, approximately six or seven years of age. He's not been dead long. He has a wound on his forehead which appears to have happened in close approximation to his death, but judging from his color, death was brought on by asphyxiation. Considering that he is soaking wet and it hasn't rained, it looks as though he hit his head, fell into the water, and drowned."

He looked up, half expecting Sherlock to leap in, call him an imbecile, and list half a dozen facts that he had missed, but Sherlock had wandered a bit away, looking in the direction of the lake. John stood of slowly from his squat over the child.

Suddenly, Sherlock spun around towards Lestrade, an odd look upon his face. "Why am I here?" he demanded, "Accidental death, there's no mystery here."

"And how do you know it was an accident?" Anderson demanded with a scowl on his face, "Someone could have hit him on the head and dropped him in the water."

"We need to know who he is," Lestrade said quickly, anticipating a rant that would explain exactly why this was almost certainly accidental death, a fact which Lestrade was not yet convinced of but if they at least knew who the boy was they'd be on the right track to discover the truth.

"You believe it to be murder," Sherlock stated, before spinning in a sudden circle, eyes taking in everything from the river to the police to the gawkers pausing beyond the tape. "He is a local to this park. His house will be close by and you might even be given a name if you question the elderly individuals populating the park's benches. Come along, John." And he strode away from the scene. John hesitated only a moment before following and Lestrade only tried half heartedly to call Sherlock back. John expected Sherlock to be making for the road to catch a taxi back home, so was surprised when Sherlock slowed once more as soon as they had gone a bit of a ways from the crime scene, well before they left the park.

"John," he said, "I need you to help me. He might have a hiding place elsewhere but is most likely still in the park."

"He…?" John asked, confused.

"Think, John! Why can't you people just think," Sherlock exclaimed with vehement annoyance, his hands clinched tightly into fists and his face expressing a mixture of frustration and passion. John had never seen him quite like this before and it made him a bit nervous. Pacing slightly and swinging his arms about, Sherlock explained.

"The boy was young, as you said, no more than seven years old. He has not been dead long, died this very day in fact, only hours ago, fished out of the lake of this park. Going by the fact that today is Saturday and his clothes were of good make but not quality…could be a case of charity but then look at the grass stains at the knees and hole in the shirt, nice clothes not kept in nice condition…they aren't for school. So he's in the park on a Saturday, doing what? Playing, most likely. Only wound found on him a head wound, no bruising on his arms or face, I'll bet no bruising will be found on his torso. There was a plaster on his elbow, it came off in the water but you can see where it left a mark, but the scrape it covered was small, mostly healed. Nice clothes, no old wounds except a mostly healed and well taken care of cut? What guardian would take that kind of care of a child then let them wander a park alone?"

"Right," John answered, "So he wasn't alone?"

"Of course not. So who would be with him? A parent? A nanny? Could be, but not likely; an adult of any kind would not have let him drown if they had seen it, and if they had not they'd have been frantic looking for him by now. So no adult knows he's missing. That leaves siblings or friends; looking at the age, most likely a sibling. If the sibling had just lost their brother they'd be searching; it's been a few hours, by now they'd have had to tell someone, at the very least we'd see someone searching. No, they were there. They saw it happen. Old enough to be trusted to watch the boy but young enough to not be able to help? They are locals, walked to the park, and trusted to be gone a while. So where would the sibling go, knowing their brother was dead and thinking it is their fault?"

John stared at him, part amazed at his thought process and part horrified by the implications of what he was saying.

"They wouldn't go home, so where would they go?"

"A friend's house?" John suggested.

"Wrong!" Sherlock exclaimed, an almost feverish gleam in his eyes, "They would go to no one because they want no one to know. There is nowhere to go, so they went nowhere. They are most probably still in the park, hiding. You must help me find him."

"Shouldn't we tell the police?" John asked, confused as Sherlock started to pace with rather jerky movements, as though he were extremely angry though John couldn't see why he would be. Perhaps a case surrounding a dead child was just as upsetting to him as it was to everyone else, he just showed it in different ways. Despite all the warnings everyone had given John about Sherlock, John had seen ample evidence that the man did have a heart. He just lacked tact, social niceties, and empathy directed towards strangers.

"No!" Sherlock exclaimed abruptly to John's question, "We do not want the police, unless you want them trampling over the garden and dragging children in for questioning for murder."

"Sherlock, I don't think…" John began doubtfully.

"It wasn't his fault," Sherlock said before John could finish the statement, "We don't need the police questioning him, like he wanted him to die!" John stared at him and Sherlock abruptly turned away. "You know how to speak to children. You're a doctor, you probably took courses on it. Help me find him." And he started walking. Swallowing, John followed.

As expected, it was Sherlock who discovered the child's hiding place. Up in the branches of a tree, John could just make out the child's form after Sherlock pointed out that he was there.

"Hello?" John called up to him. He didn't answer and John turned to look at Sherlock, perhaps to convince him they needed help, but Sherlock had turned away again and was staring out over the lake. Feeling out of his depth, but unable to leave a child alone in this situation, John did the only thing he could think of. He climbed up into the tree. It took him a while; it had been some time since he had last climbed a tree, but he managed to get almost parallel to the child at last. It was a girl; going by height and development she might have been anywhere between eleven and fourteen. From her reactions, though, he guessed younger rather than older. Her face was white and she seemed to be trembling but she wasn't crying. John knew he had to get her out of the tree.

"Hello?" he said again, "Do you need help?" She looked at him but didn't answer. "Don't you want to come down from this tree?" he tried after that. Still nothing.

"My name is John, what's yours?" Still nothing. "It's okay, I'm a doctor. I just want to help you. No? That's okay, too. We can just sit here, then. Nice day for it, isn't it? You know, I haven't climbed a tree in years. I used to, all the time. My sister and I had a special tree we'd go to." The girl still wasn't speaking but she was watching him, listening. "Once we were playing with the neighbor's dog. Throwing sticks for it, you know, and she threw a stick into the street. A car came by just then, didn't see the dog. She was upset; she said she killed it and everyone would hate her. She decided she would live in the tree." The girl opened her mouth, then closed it again. "No one hated her. We knew it was an accident." He waited. She looked at him.

Suddenly, Sherlock's head popped up between the branches. John hadn't even noticed when he had started to climb. Sherlock stared intently at the girl.

"Sister," he mumbled, "Always a sister." She looked at him blankly. Still staring intently, he announced in a stern voice, "It wasn't your fault."

At first it seemed she wasn't going to answer anymore than she had answered John. Then, finally, in a tiny voice, she said, "You don't know that."

"I do know that," Sherlock answered, voice still firm, not allowing for any argument of the matter, "I'm a detective. It's my job to know these things." She stared at him silently.

"I'm Sherlock," he told her, and held out a hand to be shook, as though they were meeting under perfectly normal circumstances. The girl reached out for the hand automatically. "What's your name?"

"Anna," she said.

"Nice to meet you, Anna." She stared at him.

"Ahem," Sherlock said, and then in a stage whisper, "Nice to meet you, too." A smile briefly flashed across her face, and then she mumbled something that might have been 'nicetomeetyou'.

"Do you like ducks, Anna?" A dark look came over her face.

"I hate them." Sherlock waited. In a quieter voice, the girl provided, "Andy likes them."

"Anna…" John said, after it became apparent that Sherlock wasn't, "What happened to Andy?" She remained silent, but something about her expression was less frozen than before, as though it might break at any minute. "We won't blame you," John added in a gentle voice, "I promise."

"He wanted to see the ducks," she answered, and suddenly she was sobbing and practically throwing herself at a very startled and panicked looking Sherlock. He grabbed a tight hold onto the branches out of instinct to keep them from falling out of the tree while looking over her head frantically at John.

'Hold her' John mouthed, making a motion with one of his arms. Slowly, Sherlock shifted his position so that he could hold onto the tree one-handed, and brought the other around the trembling body trying to bury itself into his side. She was saying something, but most of the words were lost in Sherlock's coat. John did make out the words 'sorry' a lot. He blinked his own eyes, a pain forming in his chest from watching the distressed child and knowing that this was a pain that could not be easily erased. Whether she blamed herself or not, her brother was still dead.

"Come on," John said, "Let's get out of this tree." Sherlock slowly rubbed the girl's back, his hand stopping briefly at the collar of her jacket, pulling it back then dropping it and he simply held her again.

"We'll stay here," he decided, "Tell Lestrade the family they are looking for is Addams." John nodded his head but still hesitated to leave Sherlock and the child alone in the tree. Finally deciding that it could do no good to force Anne down before she was ready, he left.

He was a bit surprised to realize he'd been in the tree for nearly half an hour. When he got to the crime scene the body had already been taken away but Lestrade was still there. He looked surprised to see John, and even more surprised when John gave him the name. He was still explaining when Anderson approached them, saying a woman was looking for her children, Andrew and Anne.

"Is her name Mrs. Addams?" Lestrade asked while John turned his head to look at her. Anderson looked surprised until he looked at John.

"Did the freak deign to help us mere mortals after all?" he asked, "And where is he now?"

"With Anna," John answered shortly. Lestrade looked grim as he prepared to talk to the woman.

"Anne!" the mother exclaimed suddenly, and everyone turned to see Sherlock approaching, the child in his arms. She was large enough for the sight to look almost comical if the situation weren't so grim; if Sherlock weren't so tall he probably couldn't have managed it at all. Anne reacted to her mum's voice and Sherlock let her go, letting mother and daughter run to each other.

Anne was sobbing again, trying to speak while her mother held her, a stricken expression on her face as though she already half knew what had happened. Sherlock approached them slowly.

"It wasn't her fault. No matter what, remember that," he told the mother as she stared at him.

"Sherlock," Lestrade began, a hand at his elbow in an attempt to steer him away from the family but Sherlock shook him off. Sherlock looked calmer now, almost as though his face were made out of stone. It was almost scary to behold.

"Your son wanted to feed the ducks and she let him run ahead. There was no one around to help. It was an accident." The mother's eyes grew huge as her face drained of color, her arms hugging tighter to her daughter. "It wasn't her fault." Then, finally, Sherlock allowed John to pull him away.

"Freak," Donovan muttered as they walked past her and John clinched his teeth but Sherlock didn't seem to notice. Lestrade didn't stop them from leaving. Sherlock didn't speak again until after they were in the taxi on the way home.

"It wasn't her fault."

"No, it wasn't," John agreed, staring hard at Sherlock. He knew something important had been revealed today; this had gone deeper than the horror at the accidental death of a child. He empathized with that girl. Sherlock didn't do empathy, not with strangers, not when he was in the middle of a case. John didn't quite dare to ask.

"This won't go in your blog," Sherlock said, after they had ridden in silence for a bit longer. It wasn't said as a question, but there was something of a question in the way Sherlock looked at him.

"No," John agreed, "I won't say anything about it."

That night, Sherlock played his violin until nearly five in the morning, alternating between melancholy and haunting melodies and what could only be called noise screeching tunelessly and torturous. By the time John got back from work the next day, Sherlock appeared his normal, bored, aggravating self. Except that he refused to speak in any fashion aside from Morse Code.

Two days later, John found a book on sign language sitting at his desk.


	6. Drowning Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6.

6.

There have been fifty-eight people in John's life that he was unable to save. He has a list. Some names on the list stand out with neon lights in his mind, containing paragraphs of information. Some don't have a name, only faces.

The first only really belongs on the list because it was the first, and oh God, he didn't know what to do, he didn't know how to help, the car came out of nowhere and the body was just lying there, bloody and broken. It was a life changing moment, where he discovered his life's ambition. He never wanted to just sit there and not know what to do again. At age nine and a half, John Watson was determined that when he grew up, he would be a veterinarian.

The second was lost in slow degrees and there was nothing that anyone in the world could do to stop the inevitable end. It was John's first practice as a doctor. He was fourteen years old and it felt as though the world was ending. His mum didn't want to die in a hospital. The nurse who came to help showed John and his father what to do while Harry lurked somewhere nearby, watching. John saw a new side of his father through the ordeal. Gone was the stoic soldier, the gruff man who stood tall and solid in the background, proud at his children's achievements and supporting in their failures but leaving it to his wife to provide the kisses and hugs and tears. He held his wife in his arms, gentle and soft, and John could see something breaking in his eyes.

John was old enough to know better, but still young enough to hope for miracles. He had some vague, childish notion that if only he was good enough, she might get better. If he got good grades, if he spent his afternoons at her side reading to her, seeing to her as a good nurse, if he just tried hard enough then the cancer would just go away. Harry was the opposite, leaving the house for days on end, drinking, partying, doing anything and everything to fill the void opening in her heart. Then she would rush back, suddenly terrified to find it too late, that all their mum's time had slipped away while she was out.

Harry took a girl home for the first time during her rebellion. John didn't like the girl, not because he thought Harry should be with a guy but because he thought that girl was not good for her. Elly liked parties, liked drinking, and John rather suspected she liked other recreational things as well. Their father took one look at the barely dressed blond hanging onto his daughter and threw the girl out. Harry got into a screaming match with him, her shouting that he was a homophobic arsehole who wanted her to be unhappy, and him shouting that he could care less what she thought she was, she wasn't bringing that bimbo into the house. John hid in his mother's room, classical music turned up high in the hopes that she wouldn't notice the row.

When she finally died, the entire world seemed to go quiet. There were no more shouting matches. Harry still drank, but she didn't go out. His father sat in their mother's room, looking too empty to even grieve. John threw himself into his work twice as hard, hardly knowing why, just anything to keep his mind off the empty room, all the while letting the thought creep in of how proud his mum would be if she saw his grades.

Then one day his father walked in while he was hard at work and placed his large hand over his, stilling the pen. John didn't look up.

"I have to finish this," he said, his voice almost growling. He surprised himself, how angry he suddenly felt.

"No, you don't," his father answered, and then, "Come on. We're going out."

"I don't want to go out," John answered, voice still quiet but feeling so tightly wound he feared he'd turn and just lash out at any moment.

"It doesn't matter. We're going out," his father said. John hit the desk instead of him and screamed, "I'm not finished!" His fist throbbed and he half expected his father to start shouting, to remind him who he was talking to and how he had better behave. But his father's voice remained quiet.

"Enough," he said, "Enough of this. It's time. We're going out."

He followed his father to the car. He didn't ask where they were going. If he considered at all, he might have thought the graveyard or a church, or somewhere along those lines. But all he could think of was his throbbing fist, and his unfinished paper, and how really fucking unfair the world was. Neither spoke for the entire car ride. When they finally pulled to a stop, it was outside an old transformed warehouse. John stared.

"Paintball?" he asked, completely confused. His father had dragged him away from an important paper to play paintball?

"Come on," his father said, and they went in.

It was surreal at first. John hadn't excepted anything like it and it felt a bit like being in a dream, or perhaps waking up from one. And at first he wasn't even trying, not really. But the atmosphere of the place seeped in, slowly, and suddenly all the anger and rage that had been hiding beneath his skin came rushing to the surface and for the first time it felt good. It felt right, holding the gun and blasting at people, and in his imagination bullets tore through skin and guts and bone and exploded, and everything that was wrong and unfair and deadly in the world fell before him.

Afterwards, splattered with paint, aching with spent adrenalin and muscles too used to sitting still, he was surprised to find how much lighter he felt. His father was equally splattered with paint, the same blank expression on his face. It was an odd sight to see.

"You did good out there," his father said suddenly, "You'd make a good soldier." John swallowed.

"Thanks," he answered at last. He wasn't thanking his father for the compliment. From the small smile his father sent him, he knew he understood.

That night, John let himself cry for real for the first time. And he really thought about his future. As a child he had dreams, to become a super hero or a vet, intangible and vivid. For the first time he looked at what he could be and made a real decision. He would become a doctor. Not because he wanted to cure the world; even if he somehow discovered a cure for cancer it would be bittersweet. It wouldn't bring his mum back. He would become a doctor because the world was large and cold and unfair…but he could fight back, at least a little, to set things right. And if he also kind of wanted to be a soldier and blast the bad guys away, well, perhaps there was a way to become a bit like a super hero after all.

If he had chosen a different path, there are fifty-six people he would never have seen die beneath his hands. But then again, there would have been at least a hundred more now living who might have died under someone else's.


	7. Drowning Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 7.

7.

John nodded. Sherlock pulled the trigger.

A wall of solid sound turned the world white. John was no stranger to explosions, but there was no getting used to the way world ripped apart, leaving him momentarily blind and deaf and senseless while the floor became the ceiling became the wall became the floor. He rolled, had started rolling even as Sherlock made a move with the trigger, and when everything settled he had forgotten how to feel. He didn't think he was shot. But he felt no pain at all, and that couldn't be right, either.

He moved even before he allowed his senses to take back in the world, on his feet and looking before he remembered what he was looking for. What he saw was a blast radius, far too small and compact for what the bomb had looked to be carrying. If he had been wearing it, it would have been enough. He didn't see Moriarty anymore, which was a pity, because in the dazed state the man should have been in, he would have made an easy target to the pent up anger, humiliation, and fear that had been coursing through his veins for the last hour, ever since he awoke and realized both that he wasn't going to make his date and that Sherlock was in danger.

He didn't see Sherlock either. Until he looked in the pool.


	8. Drowning Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 8.

8.

By the time Sherlock was five years old, he was quite accustomed to being thought odd. It still made a funny tight feeling form in his stomach when he heard his aunt asking if there wasn't something wrong with him.

"Catching frogs is one thing, boys will be boys, goodness knows I understand that," she said in a hushed voice to his mum, "But what he did with them…"

"It's perfectly natural to be curious," his father said, a disapproving tone to his voice, "I had to dissect all sorts of animals at school."

"But he isn't in school," his aunt answered, "And no one made him do it. Torturing animals…"

"They were already dead."

"So he said…" his aunt's voice started to grow louder in her concern, "But I'm telling you, there's something wrong." Sherlock's breath hitched slightly as he sat very still beneath the table.

"I'm sure he's fine," his mum answered, her voice soothing and a bit empty, like it always got when the world was not behaving as it should. When Mycroft got in trouble with the school because he wouldn't do the sports, she had that same tone. Sherlock said once that his mummy's voice felt like a cloud. He had gotten strange looks for that, but mummy had smiled and asked what kind.

"It isn't just the frogs," his aunt continued, her voice like knives more than anything, and a cloud was no protection against knives. "The way he stares at people, just sits still and stares…it isn't natural! At his own birthday party, that little girl got hurt…you remember, Sara scraped her knee up, and the other children were calling for help and patting her hair and trying to make her not sad…and that boy just stared at her, no compassion at all, and asked if he couldn't have more cake!"

Sherlock remembered that as well. He hadn't liked it at all. Sara had been too loud, crying, and he didn't understand the sharp feeling that came, a bit like fear. So he tried to make it go away, back to cake and ice cream and presents where everyone was laughing and happy.

"You know, he was the one closest when it happened. I almost think he might have pushed her!"

"Oh don't be silly, Helen," his mummy answered, her voice still gentle and light, as though she could force the entire unpleasantness away with soft words, "He barely knows Sara."

"You know he stayed to himself all through his own party," his aunt continued, leaping on this new direction, "He doesn't seem to even want friends."

Sherlock told himself he didn't want them, either. He had Mycroft to play with, and mummy, and the world to explore. He didn't know how to talk to the other children and they never wanted to talk to him.

"Enough," his father said abruptly, banging his fist on the table and Sherlock jumped. "There's nothing wrong with Sherlock, or Mycroft." And Sherlock felt a little bit better. Until his father left and his aunt started talking again. And mummy never shouted or banged her fist on tables.

"He doesn't want to see it," his aunt insisted, "But surely you can. Something isn't right. I've heard of this disease, children who are born without a conscience. It isn't anything you did wrong, some children are just…evil." Sherlock waited for his mummy to say he wasn't evil. She was silent for a long time.

"Sherlock does feel," she said at last, and Sherlock had never heard that exact tone before. He had heard his mummy being happy and the soft diplomatic tone she used when people are being disagreeable and she is trying to pretend everything is still pleasant, and he has seen her weepy when Sherlock had disappeared or gotten in a fight or went climbing again. He's never heard her actually angry. Sherlock thinks she might be now.

"But don't you think you ought to test him…just to be sure?"

"Sherlock is a very loving little boy," his mummy answered. And she didn't slam her fist or shout 'enough!' but something about what she said did what his father could not; it silenced his aunt.

Later he asked Mycroft what a conscience was, and why some people had them and some didn't. Mycroft told him the dictionary definition first, showing him the big words all written out. Sherlock recognized the word science in it and the word con and asked if it meant tricking science. Mycroft said it didn't. He looked a bit troubled then about how to explain things.

"A conscience tells you when something is right and when it is wrong," he said at last.

"Isn't that what a mummy and dad does?" Sherlock asked, a bit confused.

"It's like a mummy and dad inside your head," Mycroft answered, "Whenever you get a feeling inside that you shouldn't do something, that's your conscience. And if you feel guilty when you do something wrong, that's it too." Sherlock considered this.

"Are there people who don't have a feeling like that?" he asked.

"I suppose. Bad guys must not have much of a conscience."

"What about people who aren't bad guys? What about little boys? Are there people who are born evil?" Mycroft frowned.

"Did a little boy hurt you, Sherlock?" he demanded, looking closely at his brother for signs of deceit.

"No," Sherlock answered, looking small and concerned, and all at once Mycroft got it.

"You aren't evil," he said, and Sherlock looked up at him, his eyes swimming with unwept tears.

"But how can you know? What if my head was sick, and I didn't have a conscience and turned evil, and hurt someone!"

"Sherlock, you can't be evil and be worried about hurting someone," Mycroft pointed out. Then he pulled his brother into his lap and Sherlock didn't quite cry though there was a hitch in his breathing.

That night, Mycroft suggested a film to watch. Mummy watched too and father said he wasn't going to but he didn't leave either. It was about a puppet who didn't have a conscience. But he had a friend and the friend was a conscience, so the puppet became good and got to be human instead of wood.

Sherlock decided that if he really turned out to be evil like his aunt said, what he needed was to find a friend who was very very good. And maybe a fairy too. If he could find a fairy, a wish granting one, he would wish for a friend. One that never laughed at him or did stupid things, but most importantly, one who was good.


	9. Drowning Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 9.

9.

Number 4 on the list shouldn't have counted anymore than number one, not because it belonged to an animal but because John wasn't even there when it happened. He didn't stand over the body, trying to staunch the bleeding or keep the lungs working, he didn't cling to every bit of training he had received in his short ascension towards becoming a doctor.

There had only been one death that he had witnessed so far that he had been supposed to try and prevent. Everyone had been slightly surprised at how well he had taken his first mortality. They praised him to his face and whispered behind his back, but he didn't bother to explain about the dog or his mum.

Then he got a call from Harry and discovered that he was suddenly an orphan.

It wasn't like his mum at all; there was no seeing it coming while praying for the path to be averted. He had talked to his dad only a few days ago, his father alive and vibrant and strong. It didn't feel like he could be dead.

He didn't tell anyone and went on with his day as though everything was normal. One of the nurses asked him if he was alright, and he said he was, but no one else seemed to know anything was wrong until an old man was brought into the clinic and suddenly flat lined. John spent nearly twenty minutes trying to revive him, shouting 'He isn't dead, he isn't dead," until the same nurse pulled him away, saying, "John, he's dead, it's over, John, you've done enough, it's over." He was strangely pliant after his display of almost manic strength, allowing her to lead him to sit down and drape a blanket over him. They think I'm in shock, a distant part of his brain supplied, but mostly he allowed warm arms to surround him and a familiar, kind voice to tell him he'd done enough. It was enough.

Harry picked him up. It was almost strange to see her sober, considering the circumstances.

"Thank you, Nurse Paterson," John managed while she looked on with large, sympathetic eyes. By then she knew what had happened.

"Please," she answered, "Call me Clara."

John left with Harry. They rode in silence in the back of the taxi. Of course she couldn't have come in their dad's car.

"It was quick," she said suddenly, "He didn't feel anything." John remained silent, though his fist clinched.

Later, after the funeral, when the house felt empty and crowded somehow, as though the ghosts had expanded throughout the rooms and left no room for the living, John and Harry sat together and considered what they could do.

"I've looked at it twice, and the money just isn't there," Harry said at last, "I don't know how dad managed before." John was silent.

"We'll sell the house," he said at last, "I'm almost a doctor, we just need more time."

"We can't sell the house!" Harry exclaimed, aghast, before bursting into tears. John didn't reach over to comfort her. He could almost feel the sensation of a gun beneath his hands, paint splattering his clothes with splashes of red. His fists clinched harder. Harry slowly quieted on her own.

"I need a drink," she said at last, "You want something?" John didn't answer and she went to serve herself.

"Don't sell the house," he said suddenly, "I'm going to enlist." She dropped her glass.

"What? No, no, John, don't be ridiculous, there are other jobs you can get…" she tried to say. John stared hard at the table.

"No," he said, "It's what I've wanted. What dad would have wanted." Harry slammed her fist on the table, making him jump.

"You're going to leave me too?" she demanded, her voice high pitched and filled with tears, you're all going to leave me alone? I don't want to be alone!" And this time when she burst into sobs, shaking the entire table, he walked around to her, his shoes crunching on glass. He held her until she stopped shaking like she was going to fly apart. In the end she lay in a daze, perhaps asleep, and he kissed the top of her head.

"Don't sell the house," he whispered.

Dr. Watson became a soldier within a year. Seeing bodies explode was not the same as seeing paint splatter across clothes. Deep in his heart, something primal and savage thought it better. Like a wailing child, upon discovering that the world was not fair, it wanted to break and tear and remold the world until it could be something righteous and good. So he watched the world burn, and fixed what he could.

He felt alive.


	10. Drowning Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 10.

10.

Mycroft knew enough of what it meant to be normal to know he was not that. He could read people within seconds of meeting them but he did not completely understand them. He knew himself to be manipulative and lazy, and did not understand why he did not completely despise Sherlock. Every book he read on the subject indicated it was normal to feel resentment towards his brother, for being needy, for being a disruption, for making him devote time and worry and care when he could be doing something he enjoyed. And yes, as children, they had their arguments and fights as all brothers did. Sometimes Mycroft would want to read and Sherlock would want to play. Sherlock could be invasive, getting into his things without permission, taking things apart to see how they worked, breaking them.

He was also the closest thing to a peer Mycroft had. Sherlock had the same sort of mind that could read the world. Even as a toddler, Mycroft could feel the spark of a connection. And the age gap was enough that Mycroft didn't feel displaced in his parent's affections; he felt grown up. He had always felt a bit more grown up than most adults allowed for, and for the first time he was treated a bit closer to how he saw himself. So they fought on occasion, of course they fought, but most of the time Mycroft could allow for his little brother's eccentricities. Because he understood.

He didn't resent his brother then, and he didn't resent him for making him worry or care or the fact that he dragged Mycroft out of the comfortable shadows and made him move. At the age of sixteen, if he had had no brother, he would have spent the time without ambition, with no real goal except to read the world and let it go on as it would. But he did have a brother. And so he breezed through classes with very little effort while devoting his study times to a mixture of psychology, languages, and communications, and every weekend and many afternoons, he would leave school and visit a small but expensive institution or the London flat his parent's kept. He wasn't going to see his parents however, though they were often there on the weekends. He was going to see Sherlock.

Sherlock who hadn't spoken a single word in nearly two years.

The institution called itself a school, and in fact did have lessons like any normal school might. But it also had doctors and therapists and some of those lessons involved basic life skills or peer relations. Sherlock hated it there. He didn't say it, of course, but Mycroft could read it in his eyes. Sherlock might not talk, maybe he couldn't talk, but the intelligence was still there. He wasn't lost in his own world, no matter what the others thought. He saw this world far too clearly, and he wanted no part in it.

"You're being stubborn," Mycroft told him when he visited. And in an almost childish hope, particularly for a person such as Mycroft, he set about teaching his brother things the school saw no need for. They tried to get him to talk, or at least respond, to paint or play music. Mycroft thought it was quite ridiculous the way they treated his brother, as though the incident when he was seven had given him brain damage. And Sherlock was stubborn. He knew how to play the piano and the violin, but he acted as though he could not read a note and the only music he played was guided by his instructor. Left to himself, he pounded viciously on the piano in violent discord. Mycroft thought that evidence enough that his brother could communicate when he wished to.

Mycroft never talked down to him like his teachers did. He didn't talk at him either, as Mummy tended to do, and he didn't lose his patience and have to leave the room like father. He sat with him, until Sherlock would suffer the inactivity no more, and he taught him. Sign language was the first method he thought of, back at the beginning before he was sent to the institute when they still hoped he would snap out of it. It was highly encouraged by everyone. They weren't sure if Sherlock wouldn't speak or if he just couldn't. Sherlock himself gave no sign that he understood why Mycroft was making his hands into shapes, and he showed no interest of doing it on his own. Mycroft kept at it anyway, using his mind for the first time to really learn something, not just reading whatever came at hand and seemed interesting, but actually being interested. And to all appearances, Sherlock made no effort and learned nothing.

He did look though. Like a sphinx whose eyes took in everything and gave nothing back, Sherlock watched the world. When Mycroft had more or less conquered the new language, and had shared all he knew, he went on to other ideas. Nobody praised him anymore for trying to communicate with Sherlock. They seemed worried at Mycroft's near obsession with his brother, as though he was losing his friends and his own life over it. Mycroft knew that was ridiculous. He knew what a friend was, and no matter what his peers liked to think he'd never had one of those. His peers followed him whether he spent his free time with them or not. As for his life, Sherlock gave him a direction and purpose he'd lacked before. More than that, his little brother presented himself as a puzzle. True, it was a puzzle Mycroft held a great deal of love and care for, but that only made it more interesting and vital that he solved it.

He tried codes next. Sherlock was, in some ways, very like Mycroft. He couldn't resist puzzles. So whenever Mycroft had to leave him, and they made him leave in the end, back to school and eventually Sherlock to the institute, he'd leave him puzzles to solve. Sherlock studied them, sitting still and silent and never picking up a pen, until he apparently got bored of each and tossed them aside. He looked as incommunicable as ever.

By the time he was sixteen, Mycroft's routine was well established. He went to school, did just enough work to get top marks and keep his network of students and teachers in place, and spent the rest of his time devoted to Sherlock. Perhaps it wasn't the healthiest way to live, but at least he was alive.

He always went home for holidays. Sherlock went home as well, and the entire family made an effort to pretend they had been splintered two years before. Mycroft studied Sherlock's condition, looked over the psychiatric notes which he wasn't supposed to really know about, and continued to teach Sherlock different ways to communicate in the hopes that one day, when he was ready to respond, he'd have a way, even if his voice failed him. He also simply read to him. Sherlock seemed to enjoy it, and Mycroft knew the lessons the institute tried to teach him weren't nearly challenging enough for someone of his brother's intellect. The problem was, it was very difficult to convince anyone just how intelligent Sherlock really was. He read him all the books Mycroft used to read when he was his age, and anything else that was lying about, like the newspaper or Mycroft's newest book on ciphers.

Mycroft was reading the newspaper when he came across the article on the drowning. He didn't read it to Sherlock. One did not talk about swimming to Sherlock, or try to get him near a pool; he had reacted very badly whenever the therapists had tried and went into one of his darker moods where he refused all interaction at all. He did hesitate, perhaps a bit too long. Sherlock watched him, silent and waiting. Then Mummy took him to sit with her on the piano bench, hoping to convince him to play with her. Sometimes he would, and sometimes he wouldn't. He never would with the music therapists, pretending to not even know how. Mycroft forgot about the article. Sherlock apparently didn't.

Mycroft found him later, the paper retrieved from the rubbish where he had left it. Sherlock didn't look like he was reading it so much as he was studying it, like it was one of his experiments. He looked up when Mycroft came in. They were both silent, Mycroft wary and Sherlock expressionless.

"This is wrong."

Nobody listened to a nine year old boy or his sixteen year old brother. The world saw two children trying to tell adults trained in investigations that they were wrong. Their father saw a boy who survived a traumatic event, now obsessing over a similar accident. Their mother saw needless conflict over a tragedy she did not want to think about.

Mycroft saw that the world would not accept his brother. Sherlock wasn't like him. He needed to touch the world. Sherlock, at age nine, rejoined the world and found it lacking. He became determined that he would become big enough to be listened to, and he would make them listen. He would solve their crimes.

If Mycroft had been an only child, he probably would not have bothered with the world at large, preferring his own comfortable corner where he could read at his leisure do as he liked. But he was not an only child. And if the world wasn't going to accept Sherlock, well, he decided he would have to change the world. If the world was unjust, he would make it be just. And if he had to leave his comfortable little corner and actually move every once in a while, well, for all that he had taught his brother, Sherlock had been teaching him too. Sometimes, a little bit of discomfort could be worth it in the end.

"This is wrong." The first words spoken in two years, barely more than a whisper. If he were a different sort, Mycroft would be jumping up and down, whooping and celebrating. He stared at his brother.

"Tell me why."


	11. Drowning Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11.

11.

The very first time Harry got married, John was decidedly not present. He in fact ran outside without his coat and climbed a tree to avoid the dubious honor, came down with a cold, and spent the next few days being cuddled by his mum and called snot-monster by happy bride.

The wedding was attended by three dolls, two bears, a tyrannosaurus rex, and a rabbit. The priest was only a drawing and there was no flower girl or ring bearer as the person given both these choice roles had removed himself to a tree. The honor of being groom was given to an invisible but assuredly very handsome man named Clarence August Charming. After the rings were exchanged, being of the finest gold plastic of course, bedecked with jewels of strong resemblance to diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, there was the finest tea party imaginable with almost real cake and all the way real biscuits and the pretty flowery cups and saucers. Mrs. Charming then said goodbye to the guests and retired to the castle with her new husband where they lay in bed and he read poetry to her. It was, she was certain, almost exactly what would happen when she one day got married for real.

The next time she got married, she got all the neighborhood kids involved. This time her brother was corralled in with a more acceptable role as a groom. He wasn't marrying his sister, of course, that would have been weird. Besides, Harry was joining everyone up mostly by age, and he was too young for her. The difficulty came towards the end when John was paired with Mary and Jack was with Gwen, and Rory was with Amy. That left Tom to be paired with either Tiffany, Mia, or Harry herself. To be fair, Harry told Tom he could choose while secretly everyone knew he'd probably choose her. Tom's choice, however, was to not be a groom at all because marriages was a stupid game.

"Well, anyway, you can't have two girls be together," Harry told him, authoritatively, "So two of us have to sit out and be someone else."

"One of you could be a man," John suggested, and the other children giggled. John wasn't sure why. He often had to pretend to be a girl when he played with his sister.

"Are we getting married, or not?" Tom asked, "I'd rather play football." Many of the children looked intrigued. Harry saw she was losing her audience.

"Alright, Tom marry one of us, and the other two can decide one of them is a man."

Tom chose Harry of course. They walked down the aisle first too, where Rory took the first turn at being a priest, and Amy was the flower girl and John handed the rings over. After the 'I do's, Harry leaned in with her lips puckered and Tom consented to a quick kiss, more their lips briefly touching than anything. Both of them blushed when the other children started giggling. Then they were married, and they all switched roles for the next couple to go down the aisle.

When it was Tiffany and Mia's turn, neither could seem to decide who was meant to be the boy and who was the girl, and no one could stop giggling long enough to ask them properly. Harry thought they were both too cute to be the groom. Their kiss was as chaste as anyone's but slightly less hesitant and they giggled instead of blushing and soon everyone was laughing. It was cute, Harry thought, with a strange longing, and she almost felt sorry Tom had chosen her. She wanted to be as cute as Tiffany in her little outfit and her giggle, but at least they were best friends, and she didn't have to pretend to be a boy to get married.

The honeymoons were cut short when Tom started a football match, but the couples remembered they were couples for at least a week, which meant sometimes holding hands but mostly avoiding each other. Mia and Tiffany probably had the most fun out of it, kissing each other and playing at having babies, and laughing whenever a grown up person asked what they were up to. Harry played with them once too, when it became evident Tom had no intention of doing any husband and wife type of games. It was fun. Mia said they should all be sisters and mums together, and the games changed to that, so that no one had to pretend to be the boy. Harry found she missed it though, just a little.

The third time Harry got married, John was there. He gave her away. It was the second time Harry and John had attended a wedding with two brides, but this time there was no question of one of them being the guy. The kiss was rather less than chaste as well.


	12. Drowning Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 12.

12.

"Why don't you like your brother?"

"Why don't you like your sister?" Sherlock didn't look up from his phone where he was doing who knows what, either for a case, an experiment, or sheer boredom. John wasn't sure he wanted to know, as long as it meant Sherlock wasn't shooting holes in the wall or setting fire to the table.

"I do like my sister. Yes, she has some problems with drinking, and I think she made a mistake when she left Clara…but she is still my sister."

"And do you do everything she tells you to?"

"…No. Is that why you don't get on with Mycroft…he tells you what to do?" Sherlock suddenly stopped typing with one last decisive flourish of thumbs but still didn't look at John.

"Mycroft," he declared, as he wandered about the room, scanning the disordered chaos for something, "Thinks I need looking after. Ever since he saved my life when I was seven, he's acted like he's my keeper." John very valiantly refrained from saying he thought Mycroft had the right idea.

"Saved your life?" he said instead. Sherlock didn't respond, pouncing at last on his violin. Thankfully he didn't start screeching on it as he fell back into on the sofa but he did start plucking.

"What happened?" John pried, but Sherlock pretended not to hear him. John gave up on getting an answer and it was well into the silence that followed that Sherlock did finally respond.

"I drowned."

"Sorry?" John said. Sherlock remained stubbornly silent, and this time offered nothing more, returning to his texting. John let it drop. Until the next time he was kidnapped by Mycroft.

"You know, you could just call. Even drop by the flat," he suggested mildly as Mycroft served him tea. John had never accepted the money, but somehow he seemed to be confiding to the elder Holmes after all. John suspected that his mere presence within Mycroft's line of sight was enough to give away anything and everything.

"We don't want…certain persons…to become aware of our relationship, now do we?" Mycroft answered, calmly sipping his tea. An umbrella rested at his knee. It's not like there was anywhere else to put it in the abandoned warehouse. The table and tea set looked rather out of place as it was; someplace for coats and umbrellas would have been beyond ridiculous.

"Do you mean Sherlock?" John asked, "Because you know he'll know we met the moment he sees me again." Mycroft merely looked at him, his eyes sweeping over his appearance with an almost curious intensity.

"Why do you do this?" John tried, "Why does he avoid you when you seem so interested in his welfare?"

"What has he told you?" Mycroft asked, still looking politely interested. They made an odd pair, Mycroft politely social and John somehow rigid and relaxed at the same time, doing everything right and correct and still giving the impression of being too rough edged for his company.

"He told me you saved his life when he was seven. That he almost drowned. And you've been watching him ever since."

"He did drown," Mycroft answered, "Water in the lungs. I got him out of the water, and the water out of him."

"Ah," John answered, frowning slightly, "That's…"

"Our aunt was trying to murder him." John stared.

"Oh good God." His voice was mostly even, though it squeaked slightly in the end. That was really…well…something Sherlock would probably rather he didn't know. Even knowing this, he couldn't stop himself from asking, "Why?" Mycroft's voice was even and unemotional as he answered.

"Because her son drowned. In her grief she became psychotic; she insisted that Sherlock killed his cousin. She always thought Sherlock a bit…odd. Psychopathic though she never used those terms. She believed she was ridding the world of a great evil. And revenging her son."

"That's…horrible," John answered, and suddenly he felt a bit sick and set his tea aside. He shouldn't know this, not unless Sherlock decided to tell him, he shouldn't. He didn't want to know, but at the same time he did, because this horrible event was a part of Sherlock, probably a very important part.

"Aren't you going to ask?" Mycroft asked, and John stared, having no idea what he was meant to be asking. Mycroft apparently recognized this, because he suggested it for him, "Do you want to know if our aunt was right?"

"What? Of course she wasn't right," John answered, the question having never even crossed his mind. He had a sudden memory of Sherlock, curled in on himself, saying 'It's not her fault'. His fists clinched tightly for a second, before he forced himself to release them and relax. Mycroft appeared mildly surprised.

"I do believe you mean that," he said, and then, "Most people have little difficulty imagining Sherlock as a murderer."

"I know murderers," John answered, "And killers. I am one. Sherlock…isn't. Not like that."

"You don't think he could kill someone?"

"He could," John answered, "Of course, he could. But not like people seem to expect. And I don't think he actually has. Not yet. I don't think even he knows how it will affect him when he finally does. And as a child? At age seven? Anyone who knows him at all, knows he couldn't have done that."

"Well," Mycroft said, after a moment of long silence and deep appraisal, "I'm glad to hear it."

"It still doesn't explain your ridiculous feud," John said. Mycroft smiled blandly.

"He has a…distaste…for institutions. I do believe he did not appreciate my most recent bid to save his life."

"You mean the drugs?" John asked, after sifting through the cryptic sentence for meaning, and coming to the only conclusion that made sense. Mycroft did not nod his head, exactly, but John still got the impression he had guessed right.

The interview ended shortly after that. John still didn't know what he thought about it, even as he was dropped off at the front door. Mycroft seemed to have given him more than he had asked. Perhaps it was part of looking after his brother, telling his new friend what Sherlock couldn't say for himself. He still half expected Sherlock to rant or sulk, but the man did neither.

"Been talking to Mycroft?" he said as soon as he saw him. John didn't even bother to ask how he knew. Sherlock turned and really looked at him, frowning slightly.

"Well," he said, turning away again, "What do you think, doctor? What's your diagnosis?"

"Sherlock…" John answered, feeling wrong footed and empty and as though anything he said would be the wrong thing to say. He couldn't comfort seven year old Sherlock, stop the death or the blame, he couldn't even say for sure how much of who Sherlock was today was shaped from that event, and how much is simply who he is. Sherlock turned to look at him again, something anticipatory and slightly broken in his eyes. In the end, John said the only thing he could think of.

"It's not your fault."

Sherlock blinked.

"Of course it isn't," he said scornfully, as though John had said something particularly obvious at a crime scene. But John caught the brief flash of a smile. Whatever the reasons, John decided, he could accept Sherlock for who he is. An insane, antisocial, emotionally awkward genius who is a good man, nonetheless. Whether he believes it or not.

One day he might even convince Sherlock remember the milk.


	13. Chapter 13

13.

Sherlock hated pools, so of course he went to them often. He didn't get in them, and hated himself a little for it, but he could watch other people swim without cringing. It was a bit cathartic even. Little boys and girls, people his age, old people, all of them splashing and ducking underwater and none of them turning blue or not moving. He still twitched though, when a kid floated upside down, or their play got too rough.

He had declared the experiment of pool watching complete some years before and hadn't been back since. And then Moriarty happened, and his games. The pool was the obvious meeting place. It was like going back to the beginning, for all of them. Cathartic.

Until Moriarty had John, and if Moriarty had tried drowning instead of explosions Sherlock might have completely lost it. Instead he exploded the world. And for the second time in his life, he drowned.

For a moment he was seven, sharp pain behind his eyes as his head banged against porcelain and the large hands held his head, immoveable as stone. He couldn't scream, he couldn't breathe, and the world was turning dull and empty. His aunt's voice still rang in his ear.

"Little beat. Devil child. You killed my boy, you killed him, you killed him." The voice followed him into the darkness until Mycroft dragged him out. Most would say it was minutes before he knocked his aunt aside, before he forced the water from his brother's lungs. For Sherlock it took two years. His aunt was declared insane and taken away. It wasn't her voice he heard now, as the water became the world. Rupert was in the water, John was…his aunt's hands held his head and there was no air to scream, and Mycroft…

Mycroft wasn't there this time to save him. John was.

John dove, swimming without hesitation to the side of the pool where Sherlock hung limp and suspended in the water. In his head, he was counting time, how long until the brilliance of Sherlock's brain was dulled, how long to be destroyed, how long until Sherlock would never breathe again.

Battle fields and criminal chases flashed through his mind. He wasn't dying, he wasn't, but in the seconds it took to reach Sherlock he could see the entirety of his life flash past him, and in the seconds it took to haul the body limply to the side of the pool and heave it up, he was able to stare bleakly at all the future years.

Sherlock had to be in them. Because he was wrong. Because what he did with Sherlock was as close to any dream he'd ever had as a child as he could get. Because the world was wrong, so they needed to change the world, and he couldn't do that if Sherlock wasn't a part of it.

"Breathe," he ordered, voice hoarse and urgent and fierce, "You breathe."

He started resuscitation.

There was no room on his list for number fifty-nine.

Sherlock's lips tasted of chlorine and blood, cold and lifeless and useless, and it didn't matter what they were like, what mattered was what wasn't there. No answering breath, no gurgle, no sign of life.

"Breathe," he ordered, somewhat breathlessly himself, forcing Sherlock's lungs to compress. Water spewed out at last and he turned him on his side as his body jerked beneath his, choking and coughing and gasping.

Finally he stilled. He didn't open his eyes and he still looked more dead than alive, but water no longer filled his lungs and ragged breath after ragged breath was forced in and out between his lips.

John sagged himself, wet and cold and sore, and grinning like a maniac. There would be no number fifty-nine today.

Later, much later, Sherlock was awake and alive and very vocal in his complaints that he had to stay in a hospital for such a trivial thing as water in his lungs. Mycroft visited. He gave his brother a book and told him not to do that ever again. Sherlock glanced at the book, snorted, and tossed it at John's lap. John read the title with some confusion.

"Pinocchio?" he asked, wondering why Mycroft felt the need to give his brother a children's book, and such a whimsical one at that. Perhaps it was an absurd reference to being swallowed by a whale?

Harry stopped by as well.

"I did come to scold you, you know," she said, after thrusting an alarmingly fluffy bear at Sherlock, "Putting my John into danger. He's supposed to be safe now. But…he is happier. So I suppose I can forgive you. Just this once. But don't go getting yourself blown up again. He'd be sad again if you did."

Mrs. Hudson sent soup. And tea. And cake. Lestrade showed up before Sherlock woke up but after he was situated in a bed. John had only just arrived himself, after some well meaning doctors insisted on checking him over. He was bruised but not broken, miraculously neither of them was badly hurt. John looked at Sherlock lying still in the bed, attached to various machines to monitor his condition, and thought it was bad enough.

Lestrade stared at Sherlock for a while before turning to face John.

"He's alright," John thought to say. For someone who called himself a sociopath, Sherlock was quite good at getting people to care about him.

"Take care of him," Lestrade said at last, "I'll be back later for your statements."

When Sherlock did open his eyes, he looked like he was trying to puzzle out the ceiling, his face twisting up with confusion. John thought about seconds again, and minutes without oxygen, but for once in his life he decided to be optimistic.

"If you don't like waking up in hospitals," John remarked, keeping his voice calm and mild and without hint of the relief he was feeling, "You shouldn't shoot bombs."

Sherlock turned his head to face him, and there was nothing of the dullness in his eyes that John feared.

"We survived then?" he asked, his eyes raking over John with fevered interest, taking him in.

"Yes," John answered simply.

"Did I drown?" he asked, "I remember…water."

"Yes," John answered again.

"You saved me." This wasn't a question and it was more than a guess. Sherlock continued to study him.

"Yes," John agreed. Then a doctor came in, wanting to do some tests now that his patient is awake. Sherlock only gave part of his attention to the intruding doctor, still looking avidly at John with an odd, curious expression on his face.

"Sherlock," John said, once they were alone again, at least for a short while.

"Yes, John?" Sherlock answered. He seemed lighter, somehow, then he had been. He hadn't even asked after Moriarty yet.

"When we get out of here…I'm teaching you to swim."

And for the first time in twenty-five years, Sherlock thought he might be ready to learn.

The End.


	14. Epilogue

Epilogue

Sherlock Holmes plunged his head underwater and marveled. He knew, of course, that sound moved more quickly through liquid than air, and that immersing oneself ought to make sounds louder, carry farther. What none of the books mentioned was the simultaneous muffling of the world.

The water became the world. It became the sensation against his skin, it emptied his sight to a dull and murky enclosure and then forced his eyes closed when the burning became too much. Sound was both amplified and muffled and confined to within the pool. There was no smell at all because there was no breathing though he could still taste the chlorine on his lips. It was peaceful. Even with the way his heart beat faster and his lungs began to burn and he had to burst his head back up and suck in the world again.

"Good, very good," John said as his head came back up, his voice calm and just barely managing to not sound condescending, like he was speaking to a toddler taking its first dip. Sherlock said nothing in reply, still studying the feel of the water, of the cement beneath his legs that contrasted sharply with the billowing softness lapping gently against his chest. The bathing suit shorts which had felt a bit confining when he put them on now felt almost too loose, billowing with the water. It was fascinating.

"Do you want to try going deeper?" John asked and Sherlock considered it. So far, his swimming experience had not been nearly as unpleasant as he had thought it would be. He had wanted to learn more to overcome a somewhat embarrassing fear and to learn a valuable skill, approaching it like a chore or one of his more odorous experiments; something that needed to be done no matter the unpleasantness. Except the water wasn't unpleasant. It was big, and wet, as he had expected, and it made his heart race as he sank into its depths in a partly terrifying, partly thrilling manner. The sensory deprivation offered with the simple act of dunking his head was intoxicating in itself, both encompassing the worst of his fears and yet offering complete peace in from a world that was often all too noisy, bright, rough.

And John was there. John was always there. John was a solid, warm presence that wasn't going to let the water swallow him.

"Yes," he said at last, "Alright." And they stood from where they sat upon the steps and waded out together.

"The air feels colder than the water now," Sherlock remarked thoughtfully as the water slid higher with each step, and the bathing suit went from clinging uncomfortably heavy and wet to his legs, to billowing and loose once more as the water went up to his waist, his chest, towards his shoulders. They stopped when the water reached John's chin.

"Alright…right," John said, after they had stood there a moment and Sherlock hadn't panicked, "Do you want to try some swimming moves?"

"Alright," Sherlock answered, and then uncharacteristically waited to be instructed. John, being the sensible man he was, started with treading water. Sherlock copied him, his mind going over everything he knew about surface tension, buoyancy, and weight dispersement as he spread out his long arms and ran with his legs in an imitation of what John told him to do. And the water held him up. Not that he expected the water to drag him down where the rules of physics would cause any other man to float, but it was one thing to expect a certain result and another thing to feel it happening.

"Is this all there is to swimming?" he asked, "I would think anyone could figure it out for themselves after falling in."

"People panic," John pointed out. John was looking at him in a scrutinizing manner, though what he was attempting to deduce Sherlock was not certain.

Floating came next, another easy lesson, and then John wanted him to imitate a dog and paddle from one side of the pool to the other, still in the shallower end so he was never over his head. John suggested leaving the rest of the lessons for another day after that, now that they both knew Sherlock would be able to keep his head above water if the need arose.

"Don't be ridiculous, John," Sherlock answered, "I want to swim properly, not splash about like an infant." Despite his words, he looked rather proud of himself as he half floated and half paddled to the side.

"Right then." John answered, smiling at him and appearing rather proud himself, making Sherlock want to go twice as far, all the way to the deepest end and back again, just to show he could. "Let's try underwater next."

"First rule, don't swim right towards the side of the pool," John began, then paused before adding, "Unless you hold one hand out, so you don't hit your head."

For a moment, Sherlock felt cold and wet and that the pool was far too big and deep and empty, and John was looking concerned again.

"We can stop now," he reminded him, and Sherlock shook his head sharply, his wet hair clinging uncomfortably at his neck and throwing droplets across the water. He forced himself to calm.

"I'm ready, John," he insisted. John still hesitated for a moment, but then told him that they were going to swim like frogs before he ducked under water and showed him.

Swimming beneath the water turned out to be nothing like swimming over one's bed. There were no sheets to get tangled with, nothing beneath one's stomach at all, and water resisted in ways that air didn't. It was fantastic, a bit like flying, and terrifying because water was the entire world and any moment he was going to hit porcelain and the hands were going to hold him down and the water would burn into his lungs. Sherlock didn't last longer than five seconds before he had to burst up again, gasping in the outside world beyond the pool and water and hands.

He stubbornly tried it close to ten more times, ignoring John's suggestions and then demands that he take a break, until he managed to more or less swim from one edge to the other, minus a few feet at either end.

"Enough," John said, "We're taking a break."

"Show me the kicking kind of swimming," Sherlock answered. John was staring at him, his look of concern uncomfortable and completely different from his warm smiles and proud look from before. With a sigh, John led him to the edge and they practiced kicking.

Combining kicking with moving his arms created more splashing than forward movement, and that look in John's eyes relaxed and he was smiling again, which made something in Sherlock's chest feel lighter. John made no suggestions about Sherlock putting his face in the water as he swam, even though he had explained that part back in the flat when they practiced on the bed. Sherlock supposed he ought to be annoyed, except he didn't see the point in it anyway; he had no difficult staying afloat with his head held firmly above the water and he saw no need to try it the other way.

Learning to swim also apparently involved more touching than swimming on the bed had needed. John put his warm, strong hand against his chest, pushing him upwards, encouraging him to glide over the water more than under it.

Still, knowing how to swim was only half the reason he had agreed to come. Ignoring the way his heart beat sped up, Sherlock decided there was no point in easing from the shallows now. Pushing away from the side determinedly, he moved out towards the deep end.

"Sherlock," John called, but didn't say anything to really call him back. Sherlock considered answering, but it took quite a bit of his breath to swim. It also took just enough brain power and concentration that he thought about that and not the depth of the pool or water swallowing him whole or heads connecting with rocks or porcelain.

He touched the wall of the far end and paused, feeling the awkward sensation that his feet couldn't feel a ground no matter how they stretched. It was curious as much as it made his breath hitch. Determined and somewhat curious, he ducked his head under, leaving only one hand out to clutch the side of the pool. The water rang in his ears, his hair flying wildly about his head, and he was empty and lost and alone.

Then he burst free from the water, with a laugh of triumph, looking back at John where he waited, ready for action if necessary but giving Sherlock room to experiment on his own.

With no hesitation, Sherlock pushed away from the wall, completely out of his depth and still breathing, and he paddled and splashed and kicked back again. John was waiting there to greet him.

The End

For real this time.


End file.
